I Love You
by inyourarmsnow
Summary: Spoilers of 02x03. Sherlock returns after three years.


**Spoilers for 02x03. Prompted from a post in the SherlockBBCMeme. **

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><p>He fumbled with his keys trying to get hold of just the right one while clutching the falling grocery bag in his left arm. With only the lights of the street lamps to see from, he took a guess at the right key and slid it into the lock, letting out a sigh of relief as it clicked open. He shuffled inside, leaning a little to the right to counter the tipping of the groceries and locked the door behind him.<p>

The coat hook was empty, as it always was now. There was no long black coat, no deerstalker hat, no yellow police disguises, no dripping umbrellas; just John's jacket, lonelily sitting among the empty pegs. He shrugged it off, switching the groceries from one arm to the other, and hung it up. The lights were all off, so he assumed Mrs Hudson was already asleep, and took the stairs quietly, avoiding the places where the wood would creak and groan angrily under his weight.

At the top of the stairs he paused, shifting around the bulging bag of food and milk and tea to open the door to the flat. His hand reached out and blindly felt along the wall until he found the light switch. He flicked it up, illuminating the usually empty room with the dull light from the lamp on the table and the single bulb on the ceiling. But tonight it wasn't empty, and he wasn't alone.

A figure rose from the couch almost immediately, and John's heart jumped, whether from the shock of a visitor sitting in the dark of Ihis/I flat or from the recognition of the face staring back at him, he couldn't tell. He felt the bag of groceries slide out from his grasp and hit the floor with a thud as the oranges rolled away into the kitchen, but he couldn't be bothered to pick it up. He couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't speak, because thiswas impossible. The tall, lean figure. The long black coat. The pale face. The blue eyes. The cheekbones. The dark curls.

But it was impossible. It was him. But it couldn't be him. Because he was dead. For three years. Dead. Not him. No.

"John," the figure whispered, the ghost, the spirit, whatever it was because it couldn't be real and it couldn't be him. It's eyes were sad, it's eyebrows drawn together creating lines across its forehead. It looked concerned, worried, guilty. "John, I'm so sorry."

He was still frozen, his heart beating madly but feeling weirdly empty all at the same time. Somewhere in the back of his mind though, somehow he knew. He knew Sherlock couldn't be dead, because Sherlock was just too clever. He was too brilliant to have died like that, too smart to have been conned by Moriarity and to have jumped off a building. He had seen the body, and it had all been so real, but he had also seen the hound, hadn't he? He couldn't trust his own eyes, but he could trust his heart, and all these years his heart had been sure that he was alive. Sherlock wouldn't have left him alone, not like that.

And then he had crossed the gap, practically ran across the living room, and threw his arms around him, knocking him back a few feet, because if this was him, if he was real, he was never letting him go. Sherlock's arms encircled him and gripped at his shirt, pulling him closer until there was no space between them, no room to breathe.

"I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry..." Sherlock repeated over and over into his ear as John buried his face in his neck. His eyes were wet and his throat was tight, and he let the tears fall down his cheeks and soak into Sherlock's collar. "I'm so sorry." He was here. He was back. He was real. Three years, but now he was back, and it was all okay, and he knew he already forgave him, because he came back.

"I love you," he choked out, pulling back from Sherlock's neck to look him in the face. His eyes were red and they were both crying, their arms wrapped around each other and their bodies pressed together tightly as to never again be apart. "I love you," he repeated, staring into his eyes, the eyes that he had dreamed about every night for three years, that were now finally right in front of him again.

Sherlock smiled. He lowered his forehead to John's and moved his hands up to cup his face. "I love you too." John laughed, and the sound felt so foreign in his throat that he laughed again, and before long they were both laughing, arms entwined, standing in the empty flat, no longer empty, now that the detective and his doctor were reunited.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading; hope you enjoyed it! Comments are so much appreciated :)<em>


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